Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Yet, whether it is this collective or another that resonates with your particular diagnosis of the current multidimensional crisis, it is only through joining together with others with the will to change the future that we stand any chance of contesting those who lead us ever further into catastrophe.
In the dominant cultural imaginary of growth societies, this figure of the growth subject is powerfully gendered: it is coded as masculine.
We know it is empirically possible to achieve a just and sustainable world economy. But our hope can only ever be as strong as our struggle.
A world of radical democracy and equality — of “public luxury and private sufficiency,” with much less hierarchy and much more free time — would enable historic advances in the quality of life for the masses even if some consumer goods disappear from the menu.
Degrowth fights for the construction of positive, healthy scenarios for future generations, respecting the environment and cultural diversity through a reorientation of economic activity that abandons unlimited individual growth for a social growth that is measured, such that others can simply live.
In order to challenge existing systems or imagine a degrowth world, our solutions cannot be generated from within. We need a different, external perspective. Perhaps this is how Ubuntu and Indigenous peoples like the Achuar can help.
Ending the unequal exchange that traps the Global South in poverty and extractivism and paving the way for a degrowth transition will require an alliance of countries prepared to default on their foreign debts, and strong movements in the Global North ready to defend them when they do.
As historic as the conference may have been, much remains to be done to strengthen the degrowth paradigm and avoid its co-option by institutional politicians of all stripes, but also to create a genuine dynamic for transformation.
What ought to grow in the Global North, where colonialism and capitalism have led to sickening—literally and figuratively—overdevelopment?
This is why degrowth advocates such as Richard Heinberg tell us we need to consider fundamental economic assumptions. It isn’t just the climate, but the unraveling of ecosystems around the world.
Feminist analyses of the historical dynamics of gender systems are fundamental to the work of challenging growth-driven political economies, and of designing more equitable and balanced ecosocial systems.
I remain convinced that a phaseout of fossil fuels is a small but urgently needed first step that could lead to degrowth and eventually a steady-state society that lives within ecological limits.
